


Verdict

by aguantare



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-27
Updated: 2013-10-27
Packaged: 2017-12-30 16:31:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1020891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aguantare/pseuds/aguantare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Niall knew about the unlicensed gun that Zayn carried, knew about the checkered past that made Zayn feel like it was necessary. Zayn had two drug convictions on his record, in a state where a third conviction meant a minimum of 25 years in prison and a maximum of life. Niall knew about all of that, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Verdict

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Don't know them, don't own them, don't sue me
> 
> Inspired by some reading I was doing about [3 strikes laws.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-strikes_law)

_“Will the defendant please rise?”_

-

Niall had gotten a huge promotion that day, one that promised a substantial raise and a material improvement in his living conditions. He actually liked the place he lived in, his neighbors were awesome, and the rent was cheap, but the sporadic gunshots three or four nights a week, sometimes a little close for comfort, and the strung-out guys on the street corner offering him drugs every time he walked down to the CVS were enough to make him consider relocating. 

The first person he called was Zayn, and Zayn, in typical fashion, said, 

“Good, that means you can take me out to dinner tonight.”

And Niall hadn’t really protested, because he definitely owed Zayn for the not infrequent nights Niall had spent at his place when he couldn’t pay his heating bill. 

The neighborhood around their favorite bar wasn’t the greatest, but it wasn’t the worst either. It was the kind of place where you didn’t leave more than a couple quarters in the ashtray unless you wanted to come back to a broken window, but it was also an increasingly popular hangout for the local college kids, and Niall kind of cynically figured that those kids, with their iPhones and name brand clothes were far more likely to get targeted than he and Zayn were.

-

_“Has the jury reached a verdict?”_

-

They’d stayed late, because they were celebrating and because the beer was good. They left around midnight, and only then because Zayn, despite the five beers he’d knocked back, still had the bus schedule emblazoned into his memory and realized they were going to miss the last bus home. They’d been friends for years now, all the way back to those early days when their accents set them apart from their American classmates and calling elevators “lifts” and trucks “lorries” was the only thing they’d had in common, and it had never ceased to amaze Niall how Zayn could be hilarious and irreverent and just this side of getting in trouble at the same time that he was mature and collected and wise beyond his years. He threw an arm around Zayn’s shoulders as they wandered towards the bus stop and told him he was his best friend, and Zayn laughed an affirmation against his shoulder, his breath warm through the fabric of Niall’s shirt. 

The three guys that jumped them halfway down the block thought they were on a date. 

Niall knew that because between the crunching blow to his left jaw that put him on the ground, and the agony-inducing kick to his groin, someone yanked his head up by the hair and spat the word “faggot” in his face. The subsequent kick made his vision gray out at the edges, and he heard Zayn yelling, but the words didn’t really register with him. 

-

_“We have, your Honor.”_

-

Niall knew about the unlicensed gun that Zayn carried, knew about the checkered past that made Zayn feel like it was necessary. Some of it had been beyond Zayn’s control, sins of the father that Zayn had inherited by birth. Some of it had been Zayn’s own doing, and he’d never hidden that from Niall, never tried to make excuses for what he’d done. He was working his way up, putting some distance between himself and his days as a courier and occasional enforcer in the city’s underground, but both of them knew how easily the past could make that distance null.

Zayn had two drug convictions on his record, in a state where a third conviction meant a minimum of 25 years in prison and a maximum of life. 

Niall knew about all of that, too. 

-

_“On the charge of voluntary manslaughter, how do you find?”_

-

For one, two, three seconds after the explosive, unmistakable bang of a gun going off, Niall was sure he was dead, was sure that the guys standing over him had decided that beating him with fists and feet wasn’t enough. 

And then he was being pulled up, one hand fisted tight in the sleeve of his jacket. He’d taken in the scene in snapshots—the man lying on the sidewalk two feet away with a bloom of red growing on his t-shirt, the guys who’d been beating him frozen in their tracks. 

The dull gray-black of the gun held firmly in Zayn’s right hand. 

-

_“We the jury, find the defendant…”_

-

They didn’t run. 

Niall called the police. He didn’t tell them everything, he just told them there’d been a shooting. After he hung up, he turned to look at Zayn, who was watching the three guys who’d attacked them, two of them tending to the third. 

“Guess I’ll see you in 25 years,” Zayn said, still not looking at him, “If you’re still around, anyway.”

Niall made himself wait ten seconds before he reached to take the gun from Zayn’s hand. Zayn finally turned to look at him then, and he was about to protest, Niall could see it in his expression. 

“Please,” Niall said. Zayn stared at him for what felt like forever, and Niall wondered if he knew. Wondered if he knew that Niall would have been okay with tonight being a date. Wondered if he knew that Niall would have been okay getting the shit kicked out of him as long as it meant Zayn walked away unscathed. 

Wondered if he knew, before that moment, that Niall would take a bullet for him. 

-

_“…Niall J. Horan, guilty.”_

-

And now, Niall wonders if Zayn will wait for him.

**Author's Note:**

> I took some serious liberties with crim law and procedure, so please don't take me to task over them. <3


End file.
